


waiting for dawn's first light (there's a monster under my bed)

by rightsidethru



Series: miles to go before i sleep [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: :D, Carlos is still perfect even at eight years old, Gen, I should probably apologize in advance for the fic I'll be putting into this fandom, Kid Fic, M/M, Possibly AU, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, Sorry Not Sorry, buuuuut........., pre-Welcome to Night Vale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-22 01:05:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/907078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rightsidethru/pseuds/rightsidethru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Because there's a monster living under my bed</i><br/>Whispering in my ear<br/>There's an angel, with a hand on my head<br/>She say's I've got nothing to fear<br/>She says: La illaha illa Allah<br/>We all shine like stars<br/>She says: La illaha illa Allah<br/>We all shine like stars<br/>Then we fade away<br/>- "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcoP8c7pNVc">Put Your Lights On</a>"   Santana</p>
            </blockquote>





	waiting for dawn's first light (there's a monster under my bed)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tricksandarrows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tricksandarrows/gifts).



> **rightsidethru:** i have a couple sorta ideas for two more fics. one a bit more concrete than the other. (kid!carlos and the monster under his bed by the name of cecil. XD;;) though. wtf, brain. people tend to play up the crack in wtnv. WHY DO I PLAY UP THE HORROR?! *headdesks*  
>  **tricksandarrows:** Because your brain is special, and I love that you play up the horror side of it.  
>  **rightsidethru:** just for that i'll dedicate that one to you. :P  
>  **tricksandarrows:** ...Mkay! XD  
>  **rightsidethru:** ….really? you want it? XD;  
>  **tricksandarrows:** Hells yeah! It sounds awesome!
> 
> You should know by now, Twin, that I always keep my ~~threats~~ promises.  <3

**waiting for dawn's first light (there's a monster under my bed)**

\---

The night was always darkest just before the dawn.

Midnight had come and gone long before, hours bleeding away through the obsidian tint of three a.m., and—still—sleep would not come for Carlos. Shadows skittered and crawled along his floor, over his walls, pulsating idly to the beating of some distant heart: the boy was eight years old, his favorite class in school was science, and Carlos knew that he was too old to still believe in monsters.

Last night, he had run into the master bedroom some time around one, quietly sobbing as he told his mother about the shadow man who always sat at the end of his bed, watching him with three hellfire-bright eyes and whispering ‘perfect’ and ‘dear Carlos’ into the dead silence of his room. The shadow man terrified him, and Carlos knew instinctively that the man waited beneath his bed, day in and day out, until night fell and he could finally withdraw to sit and watch and whisper.

Carlos’ mother, voice husky with sleep and interrupted dreams, had told him that it had just been a nightmare—that the monsters that came to him in the night were just figments of his imagination, that they could not harm him and that there was nothing to fear.

(“Go back to bed, _mijo_. You’ll see that everything will be all right again in the morning.”)

So he had walked back to his own room, clutching his favorite stuffed animal tight against his chest, knuckles whitening with stress and fear both; Carlos knew better than to think that all this was just a dream (he remembered Miss Seals telling him, once upon a time ago, about being able to tell the difference between dream and reality by pinching yourself hard to wake up or to _know_ , and Carlos had pinched his arm and—still—the end of his bed dipped slightly with the shadow man’s solid weight). This was not a dream, and he could not get his mother to believe that.

Carlos stepped cautiously into the darkness of his room, breath hitching in tight fear and dark eyes squeezing tightly shut as he felt the briefest caress of fingers through his thick, curly hair. Dreams weren’t supposed to be able to touch you; the monster under the bed wasn’t allowed to show its face to the child that it haunted and terrorized through childhood nights.

“No. Please, please. _Please._ Stop being real. I just want to go to _sleep_ ,” the child begged, voice barely audible as he tried to hold back desperate tears. Carlos’ breath stuttered once more, chest squeezing down as he tried his hardest to hold back his terrified, exhausted sobs: he could not remember the last time he had had a full night’s rest (but, surely, it was a long time ago—before the monsters had first come to him).

“Sweet, dear, _perfect_ Carlos,” the shadow man whispered in reply, inky-black fingers once more lightly combing through the boy’s babydown hair. “Of course I’m real; I’ve _always_ been real, no matter how desperately humanity wishes it otherwise. But don’t worry, dear Carlos: I won’t hurt you. I won’t _ever_ hurt you.”

_And, one day, you’ll see just how I am willing to bend the laws of the universe just for you._

An echo of a memory-to-be made the boy shudder and clutch that much more desperately at his stuffed animal, and yet he still reached out and took the shadow man’s proffered hand (because there was no where to run and hours still until dawn) to be guided back to his bed and tucked in.

Still terrified and wishing for the night to finally come to an end, Carlos eventually fell asleep to the sound of the shadow man’s voice, lulling and hypnotic and threaded through with the crackle of flames; fell asleep to fairy tale stories of a place called Night Vale and the bottomlessness of the Abyss.


End file.
